Questions about Baktria...

I'm new to EB after trying a few rounds with all factions i've settled down to playing Baktria as i really like their troop selection and the faction's general feel...
I've set the campaign and battle difficulty to hard, no battle time limit ,and activated the script and i must say i was really impressed by the mod's challenging complexity and realism...

I'm into 258 BC by now and things are kinda stagnant...i've blitzed the Seleukids over the first year and conquered Antiocheia Margiane and Marakanda and then the AI started shelling me with halfstacks-Saka, Seleukids and Eleutheroi coming from all sides ... mostly archer, horse archer and pantodapoi armies conducting guerilla warfare (really annoying when you have to drag them out of the woods and high grounds they're skulking)... the Sakas and Seleukids have besieged Marakanda and Baktria so far but i've rescued the cities with my relief army...

I'm relying on a shooty army of 3Xpersian archers,3Xpersian slingers, 3X persian skirmishers and 3Xnative phallanx along with two or three general elements as shock cavalry, the army and agent upkeep leaves me with a profit of around 1700 mnai per turn to throw into building and infrastructure ( i've built mines in Marakanda)... so far the army works fine (crushing enemies with 10-15% casualties) except when facing the Sakas where things turn into a friggin bloodbath :skull: ... those guys decimate my units so much i have to send them into retraining after the battle (casualties up to 30-50%)... their general bodyguard is outrageously heavy and resisting to missiles and can punch through everything i have :smash: and has a tendency for going after my generals (cutting off the head)... this turn they have started fielding kataphracts which is really upsetting for my poor phalanxes...Now on to my questions:

A)my main problem is that i cannot seem to expand anymore... i have 9 family members which i use as garrison to reduce army upkeeps (2 at each city plus three in my army)... but i'm costantly preoccupied with protecting my territories from all sides... when i move to the north a new threat arises from the south or the east and so on...
by now the Seleukids have turned each of their borderline towns into strongolds of 15+ units ...for example Alexandria Eschate (a constanst Seleukid threat on my North east) has a 20 unit army of sparabaras, pantodapoi,heavy skirmishers, thyreoforoi,heavy skirmishers, indogreek cavalry and of course the supeb Seleukid Companions... AND a general with a stack of 12 Units manouvering around the city...as soon as i decimate that 12 unit army a new army and general regenerates...i have tried to cause civil unrest in Eschate with two spies and a superbely trained assassin ( sabotaging the festivals,temples etc) and have brought public order as low as 55% and then next turn -BAM- it's restored back to 85% and the blasted Seleukids are still there!!! :furious3:
It's obvious that if i want to expand anymore i need two armies-one 20 unit heavy one for attacking (expecting very heavy losses) and a shooty smaller one (perhaps 12-15units) like the one i already have for defending my lands but frankly two armies is beyond my economy's capacity... any ideas on what to do???

B) Being as hard pressed as i am against the Sakas i'm wondering when the heavier Hetairoi Kataphraktoi ( the guys with the lion heads)are going to kick in... are those guys a normal unit or are they some kind of reformed late bodyguard that comes free with the family members??? and if so what will i have to do to make them avalaible asap???

a final word of praise to the entire EB team... what an amazing,mind blowing mod!!! You guys kick ass!!!thank you,thank you,thank you!!!

First of all, Welcome to EB. Now to your questions.
1) With Baktria you must try to mix all of your troops for maximum impact. Have the army your having for fighting the Sakas and Parthia, but try a more mixed one ( especially more Horses) when you go against seleucids. I recommend an army of 4 phalangites, 2-3 missile units, 6 medium infantry ( thureophoroi and such) plus 4 units of cavalry (that's how i work with them.) You should try to conquer a few other seleucid settlements, or try heading east, and south, Since India is very rich, + you get awesome units there.
This probably isn't much help, but i really don't know what alse to tell you, since i don't know if your doing something wrong. Also the battle difficulty should be medium ( the AI gets no bonuses, on hard it gets + 4 attack and defence i think, that's why those nomad horse archers are kicking your but).

2) The hetaroi Katapraktoi will become your bodyguard units once a city in Italy, (that's not rome) becomes a huge city

Patience is a virtue when playing as baktria. You need to start out by taking kophen and then disbanding most of your army except you archers and a unit of pantodapoi phalangitai that you will use as a garison for baktra. The first thing you need to construct is a stone wall in Baktra. With stone walls, defended by persian archers and your bodyguards you will never lose that city. You then need to focus on constructing mines in kophen, building roads, and upgrading your mic's.

You should continue building up your cities for 20-30 years. After this you will be ready to build an army and go take those indian settlements to gain access to your indo-hellenic troops and those indian troops.

Your best army composition should be mostly native troops, supported by some heavy baktrian troops. My current army is
1 persian archers
2 pantodapoi phalangitai
2 Baktrian Light infantry
2 eastern skirmishers
2 dahae skirmisher cavalry
2 Kambojas
for the native portion of my army, and then
2 thorakitai
2 hoplitai indohellenikoi
2 peltastai indohellenikoi
2 Hetairoi kataphraktoi
1 indian archers
for the indo-hellenic portion of the army.

When the indian city has a better mic I will also change a couple of these units for indian guild infantry. I'm not sure when this will happen however, as I allow my Allied states to be autonomous.

The suggested difficulty is very hard campaign and medium battle, this is what I'm using in my current campaign.

As anubis said, a city in rome needs to be a huge city to get the hetairoi kataphraktoi. If you feel that you need them asap then a quick way to get it is to cheat "add_population Capua 4000" a few times each turn and then cheat "process_cq Capua" each turn. It should only take a few turns till you get your new bodyguards. Also, a glitch I noticed once in an old campaign was that one of my recruited generals got a hetairoi kataphraktoi unit when the reforms rolled around. Never seen it again though.

And the most important thing to remember is to have fun, great units, great spot, great colour, whats not to love? :2thumbsup:

*edit*

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Originally Posted by ARCHIPPOS

You guys kick ass!!!

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When did the EB team start animal brutality?

Did you take Kophen (the Eleutheroi settlement east of Baktria)? It is a really good target for early expansion. To quote myself from another thread:

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Originally Posted by athanaric

I highly recommend Paropamisadai (sp?) because [...] you can build highly profitable silver mines there. Additionally, it is out of harm's way should the Saka or Pahlavân attack you.

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Mines around Kophen yield twice the amount of mnai of those in Marakanda or Baktria.

Normally the "March of Time" happens around 240 BC, give or take a few years. It will bring you as well as the Saka and Pahlava new, heavier and more melee-oriented bodyguards. It also gives you an edge over the neighbouring faction because the Hetairoi Kataphraktoi are the heaviest cavalry unit in the game.

I recently finished the Baktria campaign on h/h..
It was the easiest campaign I ever had..
Pahlava and Saka attacks Seleucids and I break alliance with Pahlava and take 2 right rebel cities when stupid Seleucid AI attacks me.. so I start a war with them and soon Pahlava is my ally again as is Saka..
I start eating up their territory along with building mines and Im swimming in cash 40000 profit per turn..
So I just buy Pahlava and Saka territories I need for victory and thats it.
Taking 3 Indian rebel cities was a harder task than the rest of campaign..

:yes: some great tips

Kophen and its richly silver mines huh??? Sounds like a tempting target for immediate conquest (instead of that hedgehog of Alexandria Eschate!!!)

errrr, i have already built stone walls in Baktria, and Margiane and currently building them in Marakanda but walls can still be breached by decent Seleukid infantry...so i guess i'll arm my cities with some pantodapoi before leaving for Kophen ( just to make sure)...

and i will equip my army with some horse archers and thyreoforoi as soon as i get the economic opportunity...

thank you guys!!! :2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by ARCHIPPOS

i have already built stone walls in Baktria, and Margiane and currently building them in Marakanda but walls can still be breached by decent Seleukid infantry...so i guess i'll arm my cities with some pantodapoi before leaving for Kophen ( just to make sure)...

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What I do is sally forth and kill as many enemy as possible with my archers, targeting phalangites is usually best, then when the enemy are weakened I use my pantodapoi phalangitai and the bodyguards to crush the remaining enemy. If done correctly you should easily take less than 100 casualties.

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Originally Posted by ARCHIPPOS

Kophen and its richly silver mines huh??? Sounds like a tempting target for immediate conquest (instead of that hedgehog of Alexandria Eschate!!!)

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After you have mines in Kophen you should concerntrate on building a level 3 factional mic, this will allow you to build Hoplitai Indohellenikoi, Baktria's most useful infantry, they have good attack and defence stats as well as having good stamina and they are fast moving.

The problem is that it takes some `learning the ropes' with those kinds of somewhate `specialized' warfare. Regarding the problem with Saka cataphracts: the easy thing is to *not* keep your phalanx close to the archers. Instead try to make sure that there is at least room for 1/2 - 1 archer unit in loose formation between your phalanx and missile units. Also: do not guard any flanks of the phalanx.

This will usually work very well to keep the AI from (a) attacking your missile troops and (b) attacking the units on the flanks of the phalanx (at this stage those units are far more vulnerable to attack from any direction than your phalanx units are to being attacked from the sides; simply put: your pantodapoi phalangitai are by far your most reliable units in prolonged melee...) Should some unit do try to attack the phalanx from the sides, you can still send in your reserves (skirmishers or bodyguards) with all haste; in turn outflanking the enemy unit...

You may also want to consider *not* upgrading your cities if you want to invest in expanding your territory: EB wasn't really meant to be about build & conquer: it is either build or conquer.

I love playing Baktria. Everyone has their own way of doing things though. I would never have gone for Marakanda, that's put you in conflict with Saka and probably Parthia. Let them fight AS over it whilst you leave a smallish garrison behind Baktra's stone walls and expand through Kophen into India. There are strong garrisons there, but I find a mixture of persian archers, panto's and peltasts plus a couple of FM will deal with them after a long seige.

Once you have a couple of Indian cities, start on the nearby AS cities. Once the ball starts rolling it's fairly easy to expand all the way to Persepolis before having to regroup. Always leave the Parthians a border with an AS city to keep them occupied.

Abt the Sakas... any fight with them tends to become a missile duel at least during the first stages of the battle... they just sit back and shoot missiles against you... my first idea of dealing with them was to place my slingers archers and missiles in front and battle it out with them... this lead to heavy casualties (on the other hand my missile units gained experience) also the AI usually placed the heavier units of Saka bodyguards and saka nobles in front and those guys being better armoured died signifigantly slower than my troops... not to mention they had a better range and they could always withdraw and hammer me from a distance (though they very rarely did that) plus the benefit of mobility (=cantabrian circle) can make it really difficult to get many of them...

what i do now instead is apply a wall of shield and pikes between my missiles and Sakas... i stretch my pantodapoi phalangitai to a long thin line (to cover as much os the front as possibe) ...plus the phallanx is impressively resistant to missiles (of course some casualties are inevitable) behind them follow the slingers, archers and skirmishers in three waves and loose formation... my cavalry (generals) are placed together in the back...

This way the phalanx absorbs the arrows and allows my missiles to kill off the enemy ... when i run out of long range ammo the skirmishers are called forth... (unfortunately those guys suffer the heavier casualties-they are the bate!!!taking the full effect of the charge) and when the Sakas are busy slaughtering them the phallanxes (directly behind skirmishers) march through and pike them :smg:... I use my generals only when the Saka lord is nearly obliterated... this tactic really minimises losses BUT it demands time... if i played with battle limit most fights would end in a draw or the Sakas would charge ...

when facing Sakas i have observed that the key is to keep your army together... do not isolate units or send them forth too far... the Sakas being more mobile will simply move away or take the chance to kill some poor forgotten undefended missille troops on your back-keep your pikes missiles and cavalry together and let them interact and support eachother...

Of course i understand that in real life things would have worked out very differently... if i played as the sakas i would split my army in many small groups (frontal attack and flanks) and arrow the hell out of them... and when they came after me i would wipe out the weaker exposed units one by one using my mobility... being fluid and armoured i think in real life Sakas must have been almost unbeatable :smash:... i think i will try them right after finishing Baktria...

Ravenfeeder is right about Marakanda, its just getting you into trouble in the early game. Remove your troops, sell off the buildings and sell it to one of your neighbors. Use the money to build your economy in other cities.

nooooo i have mines there!!! Marakanda makes up the bulk of my profit!!!

Welcome to EB!

I have played a Baktrian campaign roughly half a year ago and it was one of the best so far - unfortunately it got prematurely terminated by a persistant crash-to-desktop (CTD)...
The problem with your current tactic is that you expanded either too slowly (not wiping out Saka and Parthia, which would be unrealistic powergaming IMO) or in the wrong direction.
About some of the above responses:

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Originally Posted by athanaric

Mines around Kophen yield twice the amount of mnai of those in Marakanda or Baktria.

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WOOOT!! I thought that Carna, Pella and Baktria were THE only provinces with actually three (!) gold mines in them...? Certainly Kophen is an extremely valuable settlement, but more so than Baktria?

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Originally Posted by miotas

What I do is sally forth and kill as many enemy as possible with my archers, targeting phalangites is usually best, then when the enemy are weakened I use my pantodapoi phalangitai and the bodyguards to crush the remaining enemy. If done correctly you should easily take less than 100 casualties.

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Important for EB: Phalanxes are nearly invulnerable to any missiles from the front and even from the sides it gets difficult; better to attack their right side (where they have no shield) - but still better to launch missiles at them when they really have their backs turned to the missile unit. At short range, skirmishers (Baktrian infantry, peltasts) excel at this; especially the peltasts are good because they fare decently in melee combat after their missiles are spent and they can sometimes outrun routing enemies, killing them before they leave the battle map.
For better range, use archer-spearmen as they are a bit like peltasts with lower stats but far higher range (the spears are a last resort for defense but can be devastating if the enemy is already in melee and exhausted).
Always avoid any casualties at all on missile units as experience increases accuracy but is counted for individual soldiers (lose one, retrain unit => you have a fresh recruit in your unit. The chevrons displayed are "average" values; this units sometimes get negative experience from a battle: some of their casualties were VERY experienced soldiers and with them removed the average dropped).
Again: archers firing at the front of a phalanx are wasting ammuninion. You have to first maneuver them behind the phalanx or wait for the enemy to turn their backs on you.

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Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios

You may also want to consider *not* upgrading your cities if you want to invest in expanding your territory: EB wasn't really meant to be about build & conquer: it is either build or conquer.

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That is very true. I recommend first conquering ("rushing"), then building. For this to work, you have to expand in such a way that you do not have many borders to defend after you are done.
-Disband un-necessary units during first turn (extra cavalry is superfluous at this stage and very expensive; a single FM per army is usually enough to provide the minimum necessary cavalry arm).
-Move all units east, east, east - this will take months, but keep them moving at maximum rate and take Kophen as soon as possible.
-There is a strong Eleutheroi army patrolling the mountains south-west of Kophen. It has a nasty habit of attacking the settlement ~2-5 turns after you take it - thus, a pre-emptive strike is in order.
-In the meantime, spam spies and infiltrate the south-eastern Seleukid settlements; they, unlike the one you mentioned above, *will* revolt to the Eleutheroi at this point.
-Your army that has meanwhile taken Kophen and dispatched the Eleutheroi army (higher ground is a must) can now take the ex-Seleukid settlements which will be relatively near to it and even directly adjacent to Baktria, providing some trade.
-Prevent Saka from ever taking the settlement to the north-east of Baktria. If they hold it for a few turns they get reforms. :skull: You know, deadly Saka even deadlier...
-When you have the Seleukid eastern settlements you can either move east or west. I recommend moving east first if you do not want to kill off AS entirely. You could try to make further border settlements rebel, raid Persepolis with a selfish general for some cash, and establish a ceasefire once you no longer share a land border with AS. You can then conquer India and once you have taken at least the northernmost province (mines...) you can disband most army units and focus on a defensive stance while you build up your infrastructure.

Last but certainly not least - when deploying archers, ALWAYS deploy them so that they are no more than three ranks deep. They are more accurate if you do this. Apply this literally: Even placing four units of archers BEHIND each other (column) but each individually stretched to three-deep is far more effective than placing four "blocks" of archers side-by-side because that would result in a formation that is more than three ranks deep for the individual units. I am currently playing a Saba campaign so I am using archers a lot - and believe me, it works wonders.

Ravenfeeder and Xurr know of what they speak...and I've had the same experience playing the Baktrians. In my first attempt I messed with the Saka and Seleukids too early and was mercilessly ground into the turf as a result. I read the forums, reconsidered my strategy, fired up another campaign, and played it cool for the first couple decades. Take Kophen, build up their mining capacity, upgrade Baktra, and chill. After a couple scary moments with the Seleukids, I kept paying them off with just 100-200 mnai per season for long periods of time and they stayed off my back -- long enough to become meat for the Ptolamaic Yellow Grinder of Death. Amazingly, I was able to buy Alexandria-Eschate from the Seleukids for about 5000 mnai once it was isolated from the rest of their land holdings...and got a handful of good units in the bargain. This greatly lessened the pressure on my northern border as the now-displaced Seleukid army, being my ally at the time, simply passed through my territory on its way south to take up a position near Alexandria-Ariane (I think that's the right town...just south of Baktra).

With my southern border relatively safe, I decided to take on the Saka. Yeah, they can be a nasty opponent, but there are rules one must obey to beat them: (i) do not challenge them in open terrain without comparable archery capability; (ii) look to adopt a defensive-minded campaign in their territory by occupying favorable terrain (i.e., high ground) and let them come to you...in this manner, your spear units will be much more effective; and (iii) fight horse archers with horse archers. Using this approach, I eliminated the Saka by about 235BC while occasionally defending Baktra from half-hearted Seleukid stacks (yes, they betrayed our alliances many times). Alexandria-Eschate was soaked with Baktrian and Saka blood many times, but I was finally able to reduce them through patience and tactics.

With the Saka gone, I was debating the pros and cons of campaigns against the Seleukids or the Pahlavans, and had just about decided on the Seleukids -- when BOTH attacked me with just about everything they had. The Pahlavans are proving particularly troublesome around Alexandria-Eschate...their cataphracts are really nasty. I have now started to raise my own cataphract units and will be fighting fire with fire (chain with chain?).

It's now 215BC and I'm fully engaged with the Pahlavans. I had a truly horrific battle recently where a pezhatairoi-heavy force of mine was caught by a horde of Pahlavan cataphracts and noble cavalry...I now understand how the Romans felt fighting the Parthians. I have not looked eastward for a moment...those Indian strongholds just look too scary without a strong army in hand. I have a Level 5 MIC in Baktra where I can get some formidable units, and I can now recruit Indohellenic hoplites in Kophen. If I can hit the Pahlavans hard over the next few years, I will take the opportunity to build a strong army in Baktra and Kophen to handle the Indian territories. By the time that's done, I'll have the Yellow Death at my doorstep, just in time for an epic confrontation.

About the upgraded bodyguard units -- I'm still trying to figure out when they should arrive in an historically realistic timeframe (see my other thread about timing the March of Time). I think 240BC is too early, but I could be wrong. I am thinking somewhere around 200BC or thereabouts.

Hope this helps...I'm interested to hear how your campaign unfolds. And have fun playing the Baktrians!!!!

Just uploaded my response and saw Nachtmeister's...great advice, indeed!

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Originally Posted by Nachtmeister

WOOOT!! I thought that Carna, Pella and Baktria were THE only provinces with actually three (!) gold mines in them...? Certainly Kophen is an extremely valuable settlement, but more so than Baktria?

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Actually, Pella and the settlement in Dalmatia are the only settlements with three mines. Kophen and Carna have two each (1200 base income; 3000 when upgraded). Same goes for Patala (afaik), the settlement in Sattagydia, Gader, Silengolandam and a lot of other settlements.
Baktria, Marakanda, and Taksashila have only one mine each (600 mnai base income, 1500 when upgraded).


About miotas' post: I think he means shooting at the phalangites from walls during a sally. This works pretty well as we all know how idiotically the AI moves its army around when you sally. My favourite moment is when they parade their troops alongside your walls. Gets your archers and slingers a lot of experience.

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Originally Posted by athanaric

About miotas' post: I think he means shooting at the phalangites from walls during a sally. This works pretty well as we all know how idiotically the AI moves its army around when you sally. My favourite moment is when they parade their troops alongside your walls. Gets your archers and slingers a lot of experience.

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Yeah they can be pretty foolish sometimes. To avoid the feeling of cheating, I always leave garrision toops inside a city and never use them in open battle.

When fighting the nomads, I find it best to use your hetairoi kataphraktoi(when you get them) to soak up the arrows, as their armour is all but impervious to missiles. They can offload an entire army's worth of arrows into you and you will only take half a dozen casulaties

Those Indian settlements are worth taking though. If you take a couple of horse skirmishers their elephants will die very quickly. The only thing to worry about is their guild infantry, but like any unit they can be dealt with by holding them in place with phalangites and then charging them from the rear with your bodyguards. You should always act quickly however, as a unit of guild infantry is more than capable of breaking a unit of pezhetairoi form the front. And those indian settlements come with mines already built, so they are definately worth the effort.

Withdrawing your forces in the west back to Baktra, and then taking everything in the indus will give you an incredibly powerful kingdom, and will still only have 1 front at Baktra. You will be so rich that you will be able to maintain 2 fullstack armies no trouble, and still have a strong garison at Baktra. And 2 armies with only one front means you are basically free to do as you please.

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Originally Posted by miotas

Withdrawing your forces in the west back to Baktra, and then taking everything in the indus will give you an incredibly powerful kingdom, and will still only have 1 front at Baktra. You will be so rich that you will be able to maintain 2 fullstack armies no trouble, and still have a strong garison at Baktra. And 2 armies with only one front means you are basically free to do as you please.

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You've convinced me to go to the Indus...

Ok - basic strategy for taking western India in EB (all settlements there will contain 3 units of elephants with ~100 elephants each, that's 300 elephants to a settlement, 900 elephants total for you, and maybe the AI throws in a little surprise, consisting of - you guessed it - MORE elephants):

1) army setup:
-1x somatophylakes strategou
-3x pantodapoi phalangitai
-4x peltastai
-2-4x akontistai or Baktrian light infantry
-4-6x persian archer-spearmen

2) strategy:
Place army outside city and siege until enemy sallies; you can role-play a supply train by moving generals back and forth between your territory and the sieging army or you can just use a FM with siege skills (logistics expert).
Do not attempt to take them in an assault - that would likely fail even with your most elite troops and the only possible way to succeed at all would be to damage the walls. Don't try fighting guild infantry on walls. Just wait and let them come, the sooner the better.

3) tactics:
As said above - don't try something that involves leaving a carefully prepared defensive stance. Your siege towers will not be used for anything but luring the enemy out; leave them where they are and order your troops to take up formation behind them, out of missile range from the walls.
Phalanx in front, light skirmishers in the second rank, very generously trailing (as in, *denied*) flanks made up by heavy skirmishers; archers in the third rank(or rather, "ranks"; keep in mind what I said about archers in my last post).
The general stays even behind these - he should pick a flank when the enemy has deployed and prepare to charge infantry guild warriors if there is a chance that they will rout.
The skirmishers in this setup have only the purpose of elephant-killing, so keep them passive and rested until the elephants show up.
The archers are for archer-killing; archers are IMO the most efficient units at killing Indian longbowmen with relatively few casualties; you do not want to get into a melee with Indian longbowmen. Never-never. :skull:
The phalanxes are for pinning the infantry guild warriors; when they are engaged you can consider using the heavy skirmishers for a rear-attack with a volley of javelins and then charging - depending on whether you feel confident that the remaining units have enough ammunition to deal with the elephants. Send the general in where guild warriors begin to waver. If the enemy archers don't show up, use your archers to add some fire arrows to the enemy morale.
Do not pursue routers unless the entire enemy army is routing except for a single unit standing on the town square. If the *entire* enemy army is routing, accept the victory offer...

This way, it should not be a problem to take the Indian settlements.

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Originally Posted by Nachtmeister

Ok - basic strategy for taking western India in EB (all settlements there will contain 3 units of elephants with ~100 elephants each, that's 300 elephants to a settlement, 900 elephants total for you, and maybe the AI throws in a little surprise, consisting of - you guessed it - MORE elephants):

1) army setup:
-1x somatophylakes strategou
-3x pantodapoi phalangitai
-4x peltastai
-2-4x akontistai or Baktrian light infantry
-4-6x persian archer-spearmen

2) strategy:
Place army outside city and siege until enemy sallies; you can role-play a supply train by moving generals back and forth between your territory and the sieging army or you can just use a FM with siege skills (logistics expert).
Do not attempt to take them in an assault - that would likely fail even with your most elite troops and the only possible way to succeed at all would be to damage the walls. Don't try fighting guild infantry on walls. Just wait and let them come, the sooner the better.

3) tactics:
As said above - don't try something that involves leaving a carefully prepared defensive stance. Your siege towers will not be used for anything but luring the enemy out; leave them where they are and order your troops to take up formation behind them, out of missile range from the walls.
Phalanx in front, light skirmishers in the second rank, very generously trailing (as in, *denied*) flanks made up by heavy skirmishers; archers in the third rank(or rather, "ranks"; keep in mind what I said about archers in my last post).
The general stays even behind these - he should pick a flank when the enemy has deployed and prepare to charge infantry guild warriors if there is a chance that they will rout.
The skirmishers in this setup have only the purpose of elephant-killing, so keep them passive and rested until the elephants show up.
The archers are for archer-killing; archers are IMO the most efficient units at killing Indian longbowmen with relatively few casualties; you do not want to get into a melee with Indian longbowmen. Never-never. :skull:
The phalanxes are for pinning the infantry guild warriors; when they are engaged you can consider using the heavy skirmishers for a rear-attack with a volley of javelins and then charging - depending on whether you feel confident that the remaining units have enough ammunition to deal with the elephants. Send the general in where guild warriors begin to waver. If the enemy archers don't show up, use your archers to add some fire arrows to the enemy morale.
Do not pursue routers unless the entire enemy army is routing except for a single unit standing on the town square. If the *entire* enemy army is routing, accept the victory offer...

This way, it should not be a problem to take the Indian settlements.

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Nice strategy, but I would change the skirmishers for horse skirmishers, horse skirmishers will slaughter all the elephants those indians can throw at you.

I've recently been playing Baktria for up to 173 BC, then I stopped for the moment because I got tired of taking Asia Minor from the AS. It's annoying to fight in a heavily concentrated area when you have to move your main armies main-land Baktra =/

Anyways, when I initially played Baktria, I made the fatal mistake of leaving Baktra virtually undefended while I went for Kophen. This led to the AS deciding to attack the place. I managed to win with my 2-3 FM's there, since the AS didn't send a whole lot of guys, but it basically got me bogged down in an endless war with the AS, and I stopped playing that particular campaign shortly after, since it's sorta hard to expand when you're randomly facing 3-5 small stacks everywhere =/

My second attempt, I initially disbanded 1-2 units(I think the cavalry you start out with), and just turtled in Baktra for a good 10-15 turns, gaining money and building stuff. In the meanwhile, the AS got in their war with Pahlava and was getting their ass kicked. Once I decided that I could field a decent army to take Kophen + defend Baktra, I went and took Kophen.

Then I took whatever non-AS region that was around at the time, Propthasia and Karmana I think, then turtled again for several dozen or so turns. I basically refused to get into a war with any of the factions surrounding me, since then i'm going to be bogged down in an endless war.

Then Pahlava went and cut off Alexandria-Margiane and Alexandria-Ariana off from the rest of the AS, so I decided to go for those and took them.

Then I went for India while Pahlava continued to eat up the AS.

Then Pahlava decided to war me shortly after I got my main army back from India and I proceeded to rip them to shreds. Took a good 10-20 in-game years, and I managed to more or less reduce Pahlava to 1-2 territories near Arabia, then I got into a war against the AS, and that's where I am now.

So, basically, try to avoid early wars. Stay friendly with Pahlava, and do not try to piss off the Saka. There's no way you can fend off all 3 factions if you ever get in a war with them early on, since Baktria requires a bit of time to get ready for world-domination =) Avoid a war with AS even more. Wait for Pahlava to do serious damage to them in the far east, then move in and take what you can.

As for army composition, I basically used 2 styles.

One was a heavy-cataphract and elephant army, using Alexander's hammer and anvil tactic for the most part. Something like-
1 FM
4-5 Phalanx unit of any type(I used the Pezhetairoi, but I also used the earliest phalanx for a while until I decided to reform my army a bit. Their only purpose is to give the enemy and yourself some basis to focus on, if you will. )
4 Indo-Iranian Light Cavalry(I love these guys. They actually do moderately well against Parthian cataphracts and more or less kill everything else in a full charge. Not to mention they're incredibly fast for what they do. Only problem is that they die easily, but I think that's because I use them as though they're Hellenic Cataphracts)
2 Elephantes Kataphraktoi Indikoi(I love their names, I really do. Nothing is more fun in this game than clicking your group # for them, then have them charge into a wall of units. Everything falls before them. I use them primarily if the enemy groups their units up in a large bunch. Just get close by to said big bunch, then just have them charge. Have fun watching the carnage =) )
8 Hellenic Cataphracts(Have them charge the flanks of anything. Watch them plow through and make your enemies rout in less than 10 seconds).

Probably the greatest army I've personally used in EB. Once took a moderately depleted full-stack of the above against like 4-6k AS stacks while I was fighting near Arbela, where I only had like 1.8k at most. I killed them all with relatively small losses on my side, all thanks to my elephants. The AS had a large number of phalanx lined up, so I just have them charge into the side of one, and continue downwards for as long as they can.

As for my second stack, it's more of a AoR-based stack, using mainly parthian spearmen for numbers and archers + horse skirmishers. I found that it was absolutely necessary to recruit masses of Persian AoR units, mainly because it's incredibly expensive to upkeep the stack I use above, which means that I must ferry my main stack back and forth to Baktra whenever its too small to be effective. Unless I get much bigger, it's impossible to sustain anymore than one of those full-stacks, which means I have to resort to using units of any kind to compliment my other armies.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nachtmeister

Last but certainly not least - when deploying archers, ALWAYS deploy them so that they are no more than three ranks deep. They are more accurate if you do this. Apply this literally: Even placing four units of archers BEHIND each other (column) but each individually stretched to three-deep is far more effective than placing four "blocks" of archers side-by-side because that would result in a formation that is more than three ranks deep for the individual units. I am currently playing a Saba campaign so I am using archers a lot - and believe me, it works wonders.

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Can anyone confirm this? I remember seeing this said somewhere a while ago, but some posters effectively said it isn't true.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by aelflune

Can anyone confirm this? I remember seeing this said somewhere a while ago, but some posters effectively said it isn't true.

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Hey I have a before-after practical comparison... Because I adapted this upon reading the thread you just mentioned. It works all right...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nachtmeister

Hey I have a before-after practical comparison... Because I adapted this upon reading the thread you just mentioned. It works all right...

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Damn. Why isn't this more common knowledge? :shame:

:beam: Mission accomplished i have sieged Kophen!!! Mines are avalaible but not built already so i have to start saving those 14000 mnai again and wait some more to get the extra cash flow... still after 20 years of sitting around any addition of new lands is good news(It's summer 253 BC by now)! I have left a garrison of 1/3 of my army (1Xpantodapoi phallanx,1xpersian archers ,slingers and skirmishers)and 2 FM as garisson and set off with the rest of the troops to face yet another horde of Sakas besieging Marakanda...

This must be the fourth siege of Marakanda by now... after the second siege (around 257) having defeated the besieging Saka army (killing the leading FM) i have taken the chance to attack Chach guarded only by the Saka faction heir... i stormed forth and made it just in time to face the leftovers of the defeated Saka army plus their heir and two Subeshi archer units they had already managed to train ... the plan was to completely devastate Chach after conquest and then move back to my lands... i was hoping that after pulling off Chach the region would revolt to eleutheroi and spam a huge rebel army which would buy me some time against the Sakas...

So i attacked (by then my army units have reached 1/2-1/3 of their original strength) killed their faction heir (who carried tenths of cool traits and command stars) and then enslaved the populace (around 2900 people) and scraped the city to oblivion leaving absolutely no building standing except the populated area-silk road-subjugation markers (it was a very satisfying moment of revenge against those filthy uncivilized nomads)... after that my treasury went from 4000 mnai sth to the sweet sum of 26000 mnai or so...

Amazingly enough with 3 FM members and my entire army inside the city after having them enslaved (leaving behind just some 1200 inhabitants) public order was as low as 90% percent with normal taxes!!! so i set taxes to very high and moved away...next turn a 12 unit Seleukid army (armed with pezhetairoi) approached and besieged Baktra and my army still being two turns away from my capital i had to spend my entire treasury on a mercenary relief stack (i hired two thyreoforoi,three archer spearmen , two horse skirmishers and used three of my family members)... anyway i managed to rescue Baktra at heavy losses but gone was my precious treasure of 26000 now reduced to 2000 or 3000 mnai... and to make things worse after pulling off from Chach region the city automaticaly reverted to Saka again spamming a huge army (which i managed to destroy three turns later during the third siege of marakanda) ... so ended my efforts of creating a buffer region between me and the sakas ~:pissed:

on a lighter note i was really impressed by the way the thyreoforoi mercs performed... i anchored the enemy pezhetairoi with my hired sparabara (sure they got sacrificed-but they're only persians) and moved my thyreoforoi against the left and right pezhetairoi flanks...my thyreoforoi butchered those pezhetairoi ( two and a half units of heavy phallanx)impressively fast losing only 6 men per unit (i play in small scale) ...thyreoforoi are soooooo in my " i want" list!!! :yes: